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What levels should the D&D Pantheon Gods be?

Hey all!

Been pondering the levels of the D&D Gods. While WotC seem happy enough to cap at 35 (and I agree that makes sense given the game currently stops at 30th) they did mention a few possible levels of the others in the past.

For my own purposes I have been using the followng guide to determine their power, though I am curious to hear what everyone else thinks about their levels.

If the system ends at level 30 for mortals, then I could see gods/archfiends/etc at around level 35-40, but only for their avatars. I would not give actual stats to their true forms since it seems (to me) silly to try to pin down a concept or a base idea of the universe made flesh into a stat block. That's not the answer for a very gamist approach to D&D I suppose, and it's very much at odds with your view on the interaction between PCs and gods Krust, but that's the one that I would go with given my style of running.

Mortals can (and do) fight such beings in my game, but there's no statblock for the deity when it happens, and there's never anything so straightforward as a combat between god and PCs (except for PCs versus avatars which has happened).

If the system ends at level 30 for mortals, then I could see gods/archfiends/etc at around level 35-40, but only for their avatars. I would not give actual stats to their true forms since it seems (to me) silly to try to pin down a concept or a base idea of the universe made flesh into a stat block. That's not the answer for a very gamist approach to D&D I suppose, and it's very much at odds with your view on the interaction between PCs and gods Krust, but that's the one that I would go with given my style of running.

I wouldn't call killing gods something that is inherently gamist. I am big fan of ancient mythology, and I tend to model my campaigns and campaign settings on mythology. As a result, while gods are incredibly powerful, they are like really, really, powerful mortals. They can be defeated or even killed by powerful mortals, demons, or spirits. As such, having gods at a power level where they can be actually killed by the PCs is desirable for me on the basis of flavor and narrative. Besides, if you can't kill gods, how do you have the PCs fight against god-killing abominations of the likes of the Midgard Serpent and Fenrir? I like the idea of the PCs taking a crack at one of those. Of course, I think Thor is an appropriate character to model an epic level PC on.

As for the opening post, I have always hated the idea that gods draw power from their worshipers. To answer the main question though, I think gods are appropriate threats for characters in the upper end of the epic tier, and should primarily be elite or solo creatures.

If the system ends at level 30 for mortals, then I could see gods/archfiends/etc at around level 35-40, but only for their avatars. I would not give actual stats to their true forms since it seems (to me) silly to try to pin down a concept or a base idea of the universe made flesh into a stat block. That's not the answer for a very gamist approach to D&D I suppose, and it's very much at odds with your view on the interaction between PCs and gods Krust, but that's the one that I would go with given my style of running.

Mortals can (and do) fight such beings in my game, but there's no statblock for the deity when it happens, and there's never anything so straightforward as a combat between god and PCs (except for PCs versus avatars which has happened).

In my game at least, the Gods did not create the universe, and don't have that kind of power, they are products of the universe. So I don't tend to think of them on that kind of unreachable level. I like them at the insane but just barely possible level.

As such, Upper_Krust, I'd agree with your levels that's about the range I'd use maybe top it at 37, as I can't see any party of level 30 touching a level 38 anything.

Your listing of gods looks pretty good to me, numbers are about where I'd place them, care to stat them up for us.

Deity power is not that strongly linked to number of worshippers, I don't think. The gods existed long before mortals did; faith may be a power source, but I would hardly call it the defining one. The Raven Queen doesn't give a damn what you think, as long as you don't start stitching Blaspheme legionnaires together without her permission. Hardly anyone even knows the Chained God's name--but even imprisoned in an immense, timeless, inescapable prison overseen by Torog the Jailor, cast down and bound by literally all the gods capable of wielding any power at all, he can still will servants into existence who are capable of butchering many Demon Lords merely by thinking about it! Tiamat is weak enough to die (and yes, that's worth commenting on) not because no one believes in her, but because she's literally half of the god she was.

Deity power is not that strongly linked to number of worshippers, I don't think. The gods existed long before mortals did; faith may be a power source, but I would hardly call it the defining one.[/SIZE]

Depends entirely on your setting (and if you change it since it's your game after all). 4e's cosmology, I have no idea how they defined that, but prior to 4e, deities were considerably younger than the first outsider races, and many of them arose entirely out of mortal belief (the first ones indeed didn't seem to appear till after mortal life already existed in some form).

Depends entirely on your setting (and if you change it since it's your game after all).

Oh, indeed. I've got a stting I want to play in which belief really is the driving force for many gods, and this is causing them to fracture in increasingly freaky ways as the Celtic- and Mesoamerican-analogue myths are being simultaneously assimilated and stomped out by the Christianity analogue (while being worshiped in secret by several forbidden cults, whose beliefs are themselves changing wildly and in different ways as the world moves on).

But since I see Zehir, Ioun, the Raven Queen, and Torog in the first post, I can only assume that the OP is talking about core cosmology--in which the Gods and Primordials, collectively the creators of the normal world and basically everything else (especially the mortal races), arose way before anyone else came onto the scene.

Granted, there are gods who came after that; both the Raven Queen and Vecna were mortals who ascended long after the creation of everything (both by accumulation of arcane power, though the Raven Queen got a boost when she won her own private war with the tyrannical death god Nerull--now very dead indeed). Bahamut and Tiamat arose from the corpse of Io well after the Big War (and creation of the world) had gotten underway. After the Big War ended, Asmodeus ascended by rebelling against and then devouring the power of the now-nameless deity who created him. And so on. But my point remains; the Gods, as a group, created and empowered Man... not the other way around.

I vary my ideas of god's levels based on setting, but I enjoy the almost Grecian idea that heroes can kick a gods ass now and again. I'm sticking with this conceit of Core 4e in my semi homebrew world. I see the Core Deities as powerful beings who have have become patrons of the things that interest them and overseers of certain necessary tasks for realities function much in the same way that high level PCs. I'm unsure on exact levels, but I'm tending to think that it should be based on age somewhat. The only think I'm certain of is that Bahamut should be level 35 just like his sister.